September 26, 2013

Politics, Development and Change

In recent years the world of NGOs, bloggers and development think-tanks has gotten politics, big time. Or, at least, they’ve got it with respect to the governance of aid recipient countries. Politics matters. Good governance is not simply technocratic. It ain’t all markets. The state matters. And the state is shaped by politics.

Presumably because many of us are one way or another part funded via governments in donor countries we talking heads of development seem a lot more reluctant to concede that our own politics matter — that they determine the development-affecting international actions our governments take (aid and other foreign policy).

Fortunately, there is some interesting empirical evidence being generated in academia which is looking into this. As well as some interesting case study research just waiting to be done on different countries – indeed my wife’s just started a PhD on NZ aid).

While pondering the future for Australian aid I summarise some of this international work on the politics of aid donors in a blog post at Devpolicy.